Estes Polaris (#1324)

I've always wanted one of these:

(Plans are found HERE. )

So, of course, I had to waaaaayyy overbuild mine.....

It's a 2.66x upscale that is BT80 based. The engine mounts are made of the heavy wall BT50's available from BMS and each tube is a 12" stuffer type. Centering rings are 3/16 basswood. Here's the "business end" of the 4 x 24mm "E" engine cluster:

The fins are laser cut 1/8" 5-ply aircraft birch ply from BMS, which makes the thing quite heavy. I had to add a bunch of nose weight. Being so heavy, and the original design having a payload section, I decided for dual recovery. The top (gold) half is about a 14" payload section with 2 or 3 oz. of nose weight in the tip of the cone. Probably will use an 18" nylon chute on top and a 36" nylon chute on the bottom.

A few other details:

The paints are Zynolite Speed Enamal sprays.

The aft centering ring is coated in 25-30 min epoxy to help stand up and not get charred to death. I'll put some on the trailing edges of the fins clostest to the engines too.

The decals were made by TangoPapa.

It's set for a 1/4" launch rod. Launch weight is a shade over 4 lbs. (with an 18" and a 36" nylon chute stuffed in there)

That is a very cool rocket, Fore Check! Great job! At first when you said you overbuilt it, I thought you cloned it and glassed the entire thing.

Pretty rocket! Please provide some launch pics!

Jason

Wow ,I like the paint shceme!....

Jason's right.. need a launch pic on that one!

Now that's a beautiful rocket! Nice job and well done! Isn't it great to make old favorites BIGGER?! Thanks for sharing. This type of work really gets people's wheels turning.

Fore Check, nice upscale, expecialy with the (4) 24mm's...but you look so young in that 1st pic

excellent work!

Originally posted by Johnnierkt
Fore Check, nice upscale, expecialy with the (4) 24mm's...but you look so young in that 1st pic

excellent work!

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HA ha....

That's my 6 yr. old son Jonah - he's in the pic to show "scale."

Beauty of a rocket ForeCheck. I guess this is the little ol' Estes rocket you were upscaling, eh? Well she's a beauty, and I hope you get a launch pic of it, but I know she's gonna fly off the pad!!!

Originally posted by TheRadiator
Beauty of a rocket ForeCheck. I guess this is the little ol' Estes rocket you were upscaling, eh? Well she's a beauty, and I hope you get a launch pic of it, but I know she's gonna fly off the pad!!!

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Yep, this is the one! Probably my most ambitious project yet. If it isn't, it's very close. I'm *hoping* to get between 1800 and 2000' with that 4 x "E" cluster. We'll see.....

Originally posted by eugenefl
Now that's a beautiful rocket! Nice job and well done! Isn't it great to make old favorites BIGGER?! Thanks for sharing. This type of work really gets people's wheels turning.

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It sure does "get the wheels turning."

I've already laid out and built (in my head, anyway) a couple of others. Just can't find any decals for them yet. It'd be a shame to put together another one and come up short on the finished product because TangoPapa doesn't have the decals available and JimZ won't return my emails for some reason.......

So, uh...Fore Check?

Um...

wink wink

nudge nudge!

POKE POKE!

Where's our launch pics?!

Jason

Sorry - forgot the camera!

Did put it up on 4 x D12-5's with spacers.

VERY impressive, loud, smokey liftoff! Kinda scared my 6 yr. old who was operating the launch controller!

The dual recovery worked flawlessly. I used a 36" nylon "military surplus" chute that I got off eBay and an 18" ripstop thrustline chute for the top half. I put the 36" chute on bottom, and wadded it as bulky as possible, and everything came out and opened up just fine. The top half did come down noticeably faster than the lower, but no harm done.

I estimate about 1300' on the D's.

The 4 ejection charges popping off at altitude was cool!


I'm still a bit chicken to put it up on 4 E's - perhaps when we get calmer winds (this time of year in North Texas, a day with 0-5 mph winds is extremely rare. Common in summer, but rare this time of year.)

nice paint job!!

where did you get the nose cone? or did you make it?

I would like to find a variety of BT80 nose cones.

That nose would be an Estes PNC-80K, or at least it looks like it. It's a really nice nose cone, and I wish Estes had more kits that used it. The one that I know uses it currently is the Executioner, but back in the day, there was a 2.6" V-2 that used two of them, one for the nose, and one for the tailcone, I think.

Attached is a pic of it.

Jason

That nose would be an Estes PNC-80K

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looks like it to me too.

everything on the rack at the hobby shops & on internet sites is a BT80-BB, which is the type on Fat Boy... I have a few of those already.

I guess I could just call Estes but I am hoping to find a source of different BT80 shapes.

There's always our friendly neighborhood Sandman!

(plug mode off)

Jason

It is a PNC80K.

I actually called up the nice lady at Estes (can't remember her name, but she's very nice and very helpful) and ordered four of them. She charged me $4 each plus a small shipping fee. Not only was she happy to sell them to me, but the price was right, too!

Originally posted by Fore Check
It is a PNC80K.

I actually called up the nice lady at Estes (can't remember her name, but she's very nice and very helpful) and ordered four of them. She charged me $4 each plus a small shipping fee. Not only was she happy to sell them to me, but the price was right, too!

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At that price, I would have bought...(looking into wallet)...at least 10.

This thread popped up in the comments over on YORF a couple of days ago... NICE Job!!!